The present invention relates to electronic timepieces having the function of recording/indicating the current time as well as a plurality of other functions.
Recent electronic timepieces have been multi-functionized such that they have the function of recording/indicating the current time as well as the functions of a stopwatch, timer, alarm, etc., and respectively select and display data provided by those functions in digital indicator segments on an electro-optical display device.
When data provided by such multi-functions are respectively selected and displayed, the selected data must be indicated clearly.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,388,000 discloses an electro-optical display device which has many indicators corresponding to those functions which are selectively lighted up to clearly and selectively indicate the information provided by those respective functions.
Since a small electronic timepiece such as an electronic wrist watch is limited in size, the function indicators, if any, are reduced in size and hence cannot be recognized well.
The other functions of the electronic wrist watch include a timer function; that is, a down counter in which a predetermined time is set beforehand starts a count-down operation with a start command to thereby display the remaining gradually decreasing time until the set timer time is reached. The conventional down timer function, however, only displays the remaining time.
In order to clearly inform the user of the remaining time decreasing gradually to 0 or to cause the user to easily recognize a proportion of the remaining time to the predetermined set timer time in the down timer function, a rotational pointer is preferably provided so as to rotate with the time elapsed since a starting point of time to display the remaining time.
However, provision of a pointer indicator only to display the remaining timer time is not recommendable and is useless from a standpoint of effective use of a space and the components of the timepiece.